St. Patrick’s Day

The Irish immigrated to the United States in two distinct waves. In the early eighteenth century, a relatively small number of Scotch-Irish, mostly Presbyterians from Ulster, settled in the agricultural green hills and valleys of the Appalachian region. From 1845 to 1850, Ireland lost 2 million people—either to starvation or to emigration to the United States. Over the next fifty years, half a million Irish, mostly Roman Catholics, emigrated each decade.